Tuesday, 29 March 2016

In between all the preparations for this coming weekends Crisis Point V event which will see lots of 20mm moderns fighting over the fictional Black Sea country of Andreivia I have been planning a new project which will involve 10mm Napoleonics. I have some 15mm Napoleonics which I will still continue to collect but I am keen to try out a few different rulesets. While painting 20mm Turkish Modern Infantry (I used Britannia Vietnam figures) I have been watching the great Black Powder and Blucher AAR videos from Kurtus Brown of Tabletop Commanders fame. I have ordered a few figures from Pendraken and have been looking at different basing methods to suit all the rulesets I plan to use (Black Powder, Blucher and Grande Armee). This is what I have come up with so far and would welcome any suggestions or comments.

I really liked the look of the Blucher games that Kurtus posts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygFI3GMnv_I&index=3&list=PLDXX1Xs-oSbUCB51x7rHVWSUXQ7ytQxSX&ab_channel=KurtusBrown but one thing I found looking at other blogs and videos is I that I didn't like some of the basing. If a base was to represent a Brigade in game turns only having a small amount of figures on a large base didn't look right in my opinion. I read somewhere that in the UK the convention at Blucher competitions using 6mm figures was to use a 60mm x 30mm base with 24 figures on. So I have drawn up an idea of how I plan to base my figures using 75mm x 75mm (3" x 3") square sabot bases and four 30mm x 30mm square bases to represent the 2 regiments/4 battalions of a brigade. The 75mm square bases will work for Blucher and Grande Armee and then for Black Powder I will just use the 30mm x 30mm square bases without the sabot base.

First up will be the 25th Wurttemberg Infantry Division

1st Brigade (1st Line & 4th Line)

Then we have the 2nd Brigade

(2nd Line & 6th Line)

Finally the 3rd Light Brigade with 2 Battalions of Light Infantry and 2 Battalions of Jagers.

I am planning on attaching a dice holder from Minibits at the rear of each 75mm square base I think there should be room and maybe a unit designation label.

Monday, 21 March 2016

Less than two weeks to go before this years Crisis Point event. In it's fifth year and this year we are back to the fictional Black Sea country of Andreivia. I am running a Arc of Fire game on the Saturday I believe and I am planning a multi-player game set in Tcherbevan, Andreivia's Capital on the Sunday also using Arc of Fire. I am planning to set the table up slightly differently than previous years so that most of the city area is neutral territory, and not controlled by the various factions. More on this on the actual weekend as I don't want to give too much away. I have been busy adding a couple of 2' x 2' sections to Tcherbevan and this has meant building some more buildings. The Mill is now finished and I have also built a Pumping Station.

I am also working on Tcherbevan Grand Central Station which is still in the WIP stage at the moment. I have ordered some railway track and that should be here tomorrow so I can get that finished before the weekend. I am also planning to add another bridge to Tcherbevan so we have another river crossing however it will only be a pedestrian bridge. More on these later.

Monday, 14 March 2016

My Baccus order arrived today. Inspired by the superb work of Matthew Bradley on his blog http://pushingtinwargames.blogspot.co.uk/ I decided to take the plunge. I have had a copy of the rules for quite a while but never sat down and thought what I wanted to do. The early war appeals to me more than the later trench warfare and also I would really like to do some forces for Mesopotamia.

First up will be an Early WWI French Cavalry Division using the Baccus figures recommended on the Pushing Tin blog.

With Crisis Point V in three weeks I have a few bits and bobs to get done before the weekend. As the Mighty Oracle of Andreivia (Richard C) always likes to make a new terrain piece for every game I decided to do the same. So its been a while since I built some buildings for Andreivia so first up is a Mill that is designed to be next to a railway line (more on that later).

Foamcore, cardboard and a couple of party poppers!

The railway line will run along side the loading platform.

I am going to try and use magnetic tape for the signage so that I can use the building in Andreivia and also in my Banana Republic of Costa Verde.